The Flat Marathon

We spent all of yesterday looking at more flats. The weather sucked - rainy rainy rainy, but we made the best of it. We had four appointments; 10, noon, 2 and 6. ... since it was 'across town' from our hotel, we stayed over there the entire day. This would not have been hard had the weather been nicer --- there are SOOO many parks! Since the weather was not nice, we spent the down time in cafes, grocery stores, etc...

One of the flats is really a nice size and has a beautiful beautiful view, but is a little off the beaten path from public transportation. This plays into affect as we will only have one car...either for Eric to commute to work or me to take the kids to school/have for me :).

Many of the places are close to the 35A bus...which if taken to the 'end', we can walk to school. We did this walk yesterday to see how hard the walk was and how long it would take. I think it is fine, but could get very 'old' in bad weather...which I think we have a bit of here. So... my preference is to have the car or get the AIS private school bus...which is very very expensive.

So the location/transportation definitely plays in a ton.

Each flat we look at we all leave and give it a rating along with the things we like/don't like about it. Julia will often say "1" and "I don't like anything about it" -- she has strong opinions about it! Evan is much more methodical and will give us many specific likes and dislikes.

The flat we all gave 8-10's for is the one that we hope works out at this point. It is the 3rd floor of a beautiful house built in 1901. The family bought it last year and is just finishing the renovations... it is so neat! Because of the 3rd floor, we get all the roof lines and cool ceilings -- which we all loved. They put in a bunch of windows on the slanted ceilings ...which open too. It is about 1400 square feet, which we find to be the perfect size for us. It is right across the street from Turkenschaunz park ...a big park with playground, walking paths, restaurant, ponds etc... It also has 2 other parks close by with public pools. The more I type the more I love it!!! :)

It is definitely going to be different living here... they say dryers are so American and there aren't a lot of bathrooms. The flat we want has 1 full bathroom plus one room with a shower/sink and 1 water closet (toilet).

Ended our day out to a great dinner with Anthony Bellian. He is from New Mexico (LANL) and has lived here with his family for 4 years. His family is currently in NM so we hope to meet them soon. It was so nice to talk with someone who has done this before... poor guy, I asked him a lot of questions!

Our hope is that tomorrow we can begin working on the lease agreement. If so, we are hoping to go into the Austrian Mountains on Tuesday-Thursday and move in Friday. This may be in our dreams. :)

It is our 12th Anniversary today!!

We are headed out to spend the day (in sunny weather yeah!) downtown on the 'Ring' and/or at a huge park called Prater Park.

Thanks for reading a marathon blog! This blog has been a blessing - even if nobody reads it, it is theuraputic for me!! :)

Funny... just did spell check and it came up all highligted yellow...it is spellchecking in german!!